Kamala Harris’s new (old) problem at the border

It’s been one of the most obvious changes since Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee: tougher talk on the border, an emphasis on enforcement and prosecuting traffickers, and renewed support for a bipartisan bill that would keep building the wall and hire more Border Patrol agents. Her convention speech and first debate performance backed that up. And for the most part, her party’s left flank fell in line — the imperative to beat Donald Trump was just too strong.

But that balance is being tested. The vice president made her first visit to the southern border on Friday, heading to the small town of Douglas, Arizona. And some cracks are becoming more obvious among progressive activists, who worry that Harris is too comfortably embracing the hawkish bipartisan border bill and not doing enough for pro-immigrant policies.

Progressives are caught between two maxims: They can’t give too much ground on their preferred policies, but they’re wary of hurting Harris’s campaign, in turn helping the anti-immigrant fanatic that is Donald Trump. That first priority was dominant once Harris was nominated. But now some activists worry that they’re giving up too much in the name of political expediency.

There’s a “real tension that exists in our movement right now,” Vanessa Cárdenas, a longtime strategist and executive director of the pro-immigrant America’s Voice group, told me. “We are concerned about the emphasis on the border, but we also understand that [Kamala Harris] is our best conduit to move things ahead toward the goal that we all want.”

So as Harris speaks about American “sovereignty,” hiring more border agents, and rolling out more fentanyl detection machines, old questions are resurfacing: Will she also embrace the growing calls for openness to immigration, for expanded asylum protections and legal pathways? And will she recommit to passing some immigration reform for those already living here?

Her campaign, at least, says that she is: They point to comments supporting legal immigration, “protect[ing] our DREAMers,” and creating “pathways for people to earn citizenship” from this month. But advocates want to hear more.

For a while, these pro-immigrant comments tended to come as an afterthought, after Harris made the forceful case for enforcement and blamed Trump for sabotaging the much-discussed Senate bill. Harris’s promise to revive and pass that legislation has long been worrisome to pro-immigrant organizations — so much so that 83 local, state, national, and international groups led by United We Dream and Amnesty International USA sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Harris earlier this month making clear that they would organize against the “harmful Senate border bill now and in the future.”

“It is shameful that instead of investing in welcoming the most vulnerable people who seek safety and a better life, and who make our country better by every measure, we’d suggest wasting our resources in ineffectual, inefficient deterrence policies that harm and kill these same people,” the letter read.

And still, less than a week later, United We Dream’s political and electoral arm officially endorsed Harris, saying  they’d “do everything in our power to keep our people alive and safe so that we can organize for years to come.”

“We will continue to push for immigration policies that center the lives and well-being of all immigrants,” Bruna Sollod, the senior political director of United We Dream Action, said in that endorsement. “We choose Harris as our next organizing target and are ready to hold her accountable these next four years.”

At the same, some groups are hoping that Harris’s more hardline stance is temporary — rhetoric needed in changing times — and that she’ll end up being more liberal as president.

“We all know and trust Harris to make the right decisions when she’s in office,” Kerri Talbot, the executive director of the liberal Immigration Hub group, told Axios earlier this month. 

They’re also skeptical that the border bill Harris is touting will ever, in current form, become law: “I don’t think this bill will ever come up again, as-is,” Talbot said.

Some progressives on the Hill feel the same way. “When we are in the majority in the House, and hopefully keep the Senate, and keep the White House, we can scratch that Senate bill and actually create a Democratic bill that addresses the root causes at the border and that really focuses on humanitarian relief and actual solutions,” Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez told me. “But we will be in a different circumstance come from January.” 

For now, the truce still seems to be holding — at least mostly. Criticism remains measured. Advocates acknowledge that a visit to the border will likely focus on just that. But they hope she speaks more specifically moving forward.

“We want to see a presidency that makes clear that we need to build from day one, through congressional and administrative and executive power, a modern, secure, and orderly and fair immigration system so people actually have lawful pathways. That will reduce unauthorized migration, because that is what the evidence shows will actually work,” said Todd Schulte, the president of the criminal and immigrant justice group FWD.us.

And advocates acknowledge that shifting public opinion has become more hostile and suspicious of immigrants in the post-Trump era. On Friday, the Pew Research Center released its most recent survey on American voters’ views on immigration and immigration policy. It isn’t a surprise that the vast majority of Trump supporters back Trump’s plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants — but it is notable that nearly a third of Harris supporters would. Vast majorities of both Trump (96 percent) and Harris supporters (80 percent) also support better border enforcement. And perhaps more significantly for immigration activists: The share of voters who say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country legally if “certain requirements are met,” has fallen nearly 20 points, from 77 percent in 2017 to 59 percent this year.

Public sentiment may still change — and public polling shows that some share of the electorate trusts her more than they trusted Biden on immigration. The truce may yet hold, but it’s clear that, if Harris wins the White House, there’ll be no easy answer — policy-wise or politically — on immigration.